


Holding Patterns

by vange



Category: DCU, DCU - Comicverse, The Flash (Comic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-30
Updated: 2011-07-30
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vange/pseuds/vange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark wasn't the evil mastermind in the relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding Patterns

Mark had seen Len in just about every state on his emotional range though the years. He'd been there after Lisa left, and when the first Chilblain showed up, put up with being a punching bag while Len worked out his fucking issues with his sister and who she was fucking that miserable night with too much vodka that Len had luckily vomited out so Mark didn't have to pull his battered body together and take him to the ER to get his stomach pumped. Len didn't apologize for the black eye in the morning, but he cleaned up the bathroom himself and gave Mark a blow job in the after noon when they had both managed to dig their way out of their hangovers and were watching hockey on TV.

After that, they settled into a smooth routine for a time while things had the decency to stay together. They stole shit, and drank too much, and wasted valuable time and resources hunting down Digger's latest location just to harass him. Mark suspected this had a lot to do with Len's rather pathetic wistfulness for the days when Lisa would stab Digger in the shins with her skate blades for playing grab ass, leading to the hysterical three months he'd worn shin guards with his costume. Not that Len would ever admit to even missing Lisa's company, let alone Digger's, but then he never kicked Mark out no matter what time he showed up at Len's door, or how long he stayed.

Mark had found time to wonder how Len kept an apartment what with the multiple felonies and all, while he got kicked out of crappy one room places on a regular basis. He even asked during a stint of sleeping on Len's couch. "Are you fucking the landlord or something?"

Len had just snapped and glared, "Look, if you don't want my beer you can just leave." But bitchy was pretty much his default state in the post-Lisa days, and Mark was always good enough to just ignore that sort of things.

"No really, what's your secret?" He wasn't really expecting an answer, but bugging the fuck out of each other was the basis of their friendship. And really, every friendship he'd ever had, which was a rather depressing thought, making him take to drink and then annoy the fuck out of his friends even more. A vicious cycle really.

"Couldn't you be bugging McCulloch for once?"

"His couch sucks. And he doesn't like hockey." McCulloch, Mark suspected, had something inherently wrong with him on some deep, important level. Really, who didn't like hockey?

"I ought to charge you rent," Len said, plopping down on the couch next to him just a bit too close to just be guys hanging out.

"Ah, you know money's... tight... right now," Mark grinned, swinging one leg over Len's.

"Sure there's something we can work out." And Len smiled before shoving his tongue down Mark's throat, which meant things were going right for once.

When Lisa died, Len shut down, silently staring at a tattered snapshot of them together for what seemed like days while drinking cheap whiskey. Mark hovered nearby, remembering his own brother, and that night in the lab and the vicious thrill of touching the wand for the first time and the power. Something inside of him must have snapped because he found himself letting the words stumble out. The horrible confession that had been floating in the back of his head for years of how he had killed his brother and loved it. Loved the wand and the power and how letting a bolt of lightning rip through a person's body was better than sex some days, definitely better than any of the trash McCulloch dug up to dull his past. Len had just listened, staring cold and silent through the whole story, and afterwards when Mark had passed out from exhaustion on the battered sofa.

Len was gone before Mark woke up in the morning, covered in a blanket with all the empty bottles piled in the kitchen. He spent the next week in Len's apartment, slowly working his way through all the favors and credit the local liquor store would grant him. Len didn't come back after a month, and when McCulloch came around talking about this Blacksmith woman setting up a black market operation he jumped on the opportunity.

Things there weren't too bad there. McCulloch wasn't half as good a drinking buddy as Len, and he still didn't get hockey. The new Trickster was a little punk, but with Jesse off on his FBI lark everyone was making do with the cheap imitation. Mark found himself taking every stupid assignment he could to get out of the Network hive. It was good for an occasional visit, and sometimes old faces would show up and chat, but sitting around playing babysitter for Blacksmith's crazy ass new recruits was not a fun occupation. Steady money was good though, and he was learning a thing or too about mastering his powers.

Somewhere in the middle of things, news came down the wire about his son. In hindsight (That wonderful thing that he was suppose to have developed somewhere between the whole "damned while bringing the forces of hell to earth and also, dead" and "coming back and living a better life and who is he kidding." Hindsight was a bitch.) trying to grab the kid right at the mom's funeral (her name still slips his mind half the time, replaced with the nagging feeling that there was a story about that yuppie red haired guy he should be up on) was a stupid plan, but really he was never the mastermind of the operation. Flash had fucked all that up, and to add even more insult and injury to his battered state, Blacksmith had whapped him upside the head a few good times when he showed up again, shouting about him ruining their "element of surprise" or whatever.

To be fair to the bitch, things afterwards did go to shit pretty quickly, but Mark was almost certain only a small amount of that could be blamed on him. Then seeing Len again telling them all that what they needed was a real leader cheered him up immediately.

Len was born for the forceful leader of men gig. Mark had never really noticed it before. In the good old days everyone really did their own thing, just meeting up to play cards and tell outrageous lies about sexual conquests. But times had changed, and without someone in charge with a plan things weren't going to end in short, relaxing jail stints anymore. Escalation and all that shit, which pretty much meant next time he fucked up the cops were going to be shooting to kill. Which was rather bitchy of them really, and being dead once was more than enough for his tastes.

"We're not going to do some stupid shit and die again, are we?"

Len just glared at him, lazing naked on the dusty covers of the bed no one had slept on in months. "Course not."

"Just checking because, you know. No beer or hockey or sex when you're dead." Mark traced all the new scars he could and wondered where the hell Len had been and knew he'd never find out.

"Regular hell, ain't it." They had to laugh.


End file.
